The 12th Engineering Division
by ebonyandunicorn
Summary: Three years ago, Zabrak technician Bao-Dur and human scientist Bruce Banner worked and fought side-by-side in the Mandalorian Wars. The countless conflicts brought them together but also left them with scars, and they haven't seen each other since the final battle – a battle in which they both did unspeakable things.
1. Losing

**Coruscant, 3 957 BBY  
**

Dinnah's Den was exactly the type of bar your mother had warned you to stay away from when you were young. There was more cigarra smoke choking the room than there was breathable air, and the floor was slick with spilled drinks and vomit and other bodily fluids you didn't want to look at too closely. Over the deafening rowdiness of the crowd and the nasal crooning of the obese Rodian on stage, you could hear the occasional blaster bolt being fired when a friendly argument between patrons became a little less friendly. Half a hundred people from twenty different species were laughing, talking, gambling, and drinking – always drinking. It was a place to lose yourself, in alcohol and memories and noise.

At a low table in the very corner of the room, Bao-Dur was trying to do just that.

He sat alone and quiet, which meant that very few people noticed him. His remote was hovering beside him, low in the air over his right shoulder – it was his favourite drinking buddy, because it didn't try to make conversation. There were certain times when drinking was very much a private, one-man affair. Directly after learning your home colony had been bombed out of commission was one of those times.

He raised his drink to his lips (in his right hand, of course) and drained it. He couldn't remember who had brought him the news; he was trying not to think on it too much. He hadn't been home in four years. He'd been too ashamed to show his face there after the war had ended. After what he'd done.

A shadow fell over his table. Reluctantly, Bao-Dur looked up. A enormous, grey-bearded human, smelling of spirits and burnt hair, was pointing at his remote with a joyous expression. "Look! It'sh floating!"

"Yes, it is," Bao-Dur replied, biting back a sarcastic remark. Wit was wasted on drunkards.

"How'sh it do that?"

"A potent combination of engineering, magic, and strong Corellian brandy," the Zabrak replied. "Which reminds me, I think it's overdue for a top-up. If you'll excuse me." He snatched the remote from the air, ignoring its beeped protests, and made for the exit. The place's prices were extortionate anyway.

He was two feet away from the door when someone grabbed the back of his jacket. Bao-Dur turned, still clutching the remote in his hand, and stared into the eyes of the grey-bearded human. "Can I help you?"

"It'sh rude," the man said with difficulty, releasing his jacket after a pause, "to leave in the middle of a convershation."

"I'm terribly sorry –"

"I wash in the middle of shaying _important_ thingsh."

"Perhaps I could –"

"Don't talk back to me, Shpikesh!" the man screamed.

_Spikes_. Bao-Dur sighed inwardly. _Never heard that one before_. Maybe not from one quite so drunk, at least. He took a step backwards. "Look, I'm going to –"

The man roared and threw a punch, which missed Bao-Dur's head by at least a foot. The human was determined, though, and followed up his clumsy punch with a full-body tackle. The weight of him sent the slight Zabrak sprawling and the remote went flying from his hand. He struggled with the human for several moments, spit and insults pelting him like rain, before he managed to slam the man's head into the floor with enough force to free himself from under his body. The man could only groan. He showed no indication of getting to his feet any time soon.

Bao-Dur stood and glanced around for his remote, but it was nowhere to be found. _Maybe it drifted outside to get away from all the noise_. He wouldn't have blamed it if it had. After searching the room again more thoroughly, he concluded that it must have done, and exited the bar.

The sudden drop in noise level was comparable to turning off the engine of a shuttle you had just been standing beside. He coughed to make sure he hadn't become spontaneously deaf. A second later, a familiar beeping from around the corner his right reassured him again that he had not.

"There you are," he said, turning the corner. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd –"

He broke off. Someone was leaning against the wall at eye-level with his remote, if his remote had possessed eyes. It was another human male, although this one had olive skin and dark, curly hair. Nor was he staring at the remote with the usually provoked fascination – in fact, he almost looked bored. For its part, the remote was beeping contentedly. It knew this man. Bao-Dur knew this man.

"Bruce Banner," he said.


	2. Finding

"Bao-Dur," the man replied calmly, without turning his head. The remote was twirling slowly around in the air, and he watched it as he spoke. "It's been a long time. Here was about the last place I expected to see you."

"I..." Bao-Dur paused. _I never expected to see you at all_, he wanted to say. The events at Malachor V had killed thousands of Republic soldiers and, for three years, he had assumed Bruce Banner had been among them. His presence here, now, in front of him, had shocked him almost as deeply as the news about his colony. A hundred questions were firing off in his head: _How did he make it out alive? Why didn't he contact me? Does he know what I did?_ There were so many. Banner looked exactly as Bao-Dur remembered – slightly overgrown hair, worn clothes that were always too large. He struggled to sort out his thoughts and come up with a response.

"It's good to see you," he said at last. It sounded weak, after all that they had shared. He hurried on. "I could use some more good news today."

Banner raised an eyebrow, at last turning to him. His face was half-hidden in the shadows, but Bao-Dur could feel the familiar weight of his gaze. There were lines etched in that olive skin that had not been there before the last battle.

"Malak," Bao-Dur explained quietly. "Laid waste to my home colony. Bombed it half out of the sky. I hadn't seen it in years."

Banner grimaced sympathetically. "I'm sorry to hear that." He visibly hesitated for a moment, then pushed off the wall and moved as if to lay a hand on Bao-Dur's shoulder. As he did so, he finally noticed what was different about his old friend. "Force almighty," he breathed, withdrawing his hand in shock. "Bao-Dur, your arm..."

The Zabrak shrugged, glancing briefly at where the rest of his left arm had once been. "Souvenir from Malachor," he said simply, hiding the hurt beneath his usual quick wit. "I could have been a lot worse off, all things considered."

"How did it...?"

"It's a long story."

"Of course. Forgive me. That was rude." Always his first instinct: to apologise and back away before he hurt anyone, even unintentionally. So carefully controlled. It wasn't often that he slipped up; he could hardly afford to do so.

Banner took a breath. "Something easier to answer, then," he said. "What are you doing here?"

Bao-Dur gestured towards the bar around the corner. "Drinking. Reminiscing. Getting beaten up." He touched the back of his head, where a lump was forming. "You know, the usual."

"Dinnah's Den is not renowned for its peaceful atmosphere," Banner murmured dryly.

"Booze is terrible, too," Bao-Dur said with a nod.

Bruce Banner ran a hand through his hair, then looked up at his old friend with his trademark hesitant expression. "I know a much nicer place not too far from here," he said quietly, leaving the suggestion open.

Bao-Dur nodded again. "Lead the way."

* * *

They walked for several minutes in silence; even the remote was quiet, drifting along in the air between them. The streets of Coruscant's underworld were shadowed and labyrinthine, twisting and turning incomprehensibly. Bao-Dur had no idea how he'd managed to find the bar in the first place, and was grateful for Banner's presence – if he'd attempted to make it back to the surface by himself, he would almost certainly have ended up lost. Banner had grown up here, he remembered being told once. He probably knew the underworld streets the way Bao-Dur knew the lush plains that were back home...

_Had been back home_, he corrected himself. Grief washed over him anew and he felt tears form in his eyes. He wiped them away quickly with the heel of his hand. There would be time to grieve properly later, when he was alone.

Instead he passed the time watching Banner in front of him. His movements were as they had always been, slightly hesitant but infinitely controlled. He was clearly comfortable in this environment – far more so that Bao-Dur, at least. There was no limp, no scar that he could see; he did not move with the weight of thousands of lost lives on his shoulders as Bao-Dur did. The Zabrak couldn't help the surge of envy.

_No_, he reminded himself. Banner had his own demons.

"We're here." As they entered, Bao-Dur looked around and nodded appreciatively. Where Dinnah's Den had been lit with blinding neon and smelled of smoke and vomit, this place was bathed in a gentle red glow and perfumed with some sort of flower. It was quiet, too; two men were at the bar, and a woman was seated alone at a table, but that was all. The room was small and cramped, but pleasantly so. The bartender, a young human female, smiled at them as they entered.

"Nice place," Bao-Dur murmured.

"I thought you'd like it. I came here all the time before the war." They sat opposite each other at a table. Banner, he saw, was obviously trying very hard not to stare at the abrupt end of his left arm.

"You can look, you know," he said, amused. "It doesn't have feelings."

"But you do."

The comment brought him up short. He was silent for a few moments, staring at Banner across the table.

"I thought you'd died," Bao-Dur whispered.

Banner's mouth twisted in a movement he knew well, all self-loathing and regret. "Better that I had," he said.


	3. Living

"Don't say that," Bao-Dur whispered. "Don't."

Banner leaned back against the wall, his fingers tracing patterns on the smooth plasteel tabletop. He didn't look up at Bao-Dur as he spoke. "Why not?" he asked, a terrible apathy in his voice. "It doesn't matter, anyhow. It didn't happen; I don't think it can. I survived things that day that no man should be able to survive." His eyes flicked up to meet his friend's, challenging him, daring him to argue as he went on: "I did things that day that no man should be able to do."

"As did I," the Zabrak replied levelly.

"You?" Banner shook his head. "No. Not you. Not Bao-Dur, the gentle inventor who wouldn't raise a vibroblade against a rancor if he thought there was a chance to talk things out with it instead. War never agreed with you, my friend. We all killed people. That's what men have to do in war. I just... took it a little further."

"_As did I_," Bao-Dur said again. "I was responsible for more deaths that day than any other man in either fleet."

Banner laughed. "I don't think so." There was such self-loathing in the smirk around his mouth. "You didn't become a hideous green monster that kills indiscriminately."

Bao-Dur dropped his gaze. So Banner had hulked out. He'd lost control in the heat of the battle on the surface. Nobody could have blamed him – least of all Bao-Dur – but he knew that Banner would have taken it to heart and considered himself personally responsible for anything he'd done while in that state. Before Malachor V, it had been months since Banner had had an incident. It was sad and terrible to hear that he had broken that streak.

"See?" Banner had taken Bao-Dur's silence as confirmation of his horror and disgust. "I killed people, Bao-Dur. I killed dozens of Mandalorians – _but I didn't stop there_. When there were no enemies in sight, the Other Guy turned on our own men. I don't remember much of what he... what I did, but I remember hearing them scream. I hear them every night in my dreams."

"I didn't know," Bao-Dur said truthfully. There had been no mention of that incident in the post-battle reports. Of course, what Bao-Dur had done to conclude the fight had eclipsed almost any other story.

"No, I didn't expect so," Banner replied. "High Command wouldn't have wanted it to get out that one of their troops had been exposed to Phase 5 radiation as a child and could spontaneously transform into a monstrous killing machine. Besides, they thought I was dead. Someone or something managed to knock me out... some kind of huge explosion. When I came 'round, the entire planet had been shattered. It was in pieces." He shrugged. "Everyone on the surface died. I should have died too."

"_No_," Bao-Dur said emphatically. "I lost too many friends to that war, Bruce."

"Then what's one more?" Banner's hand curled into a fist on the table; Bao-Dur looked at it, and Banner followed his gaze. He let out a slow sigh and uncurled his fingers. "See?" he murmured. "I'm volatile. Every hint of emotion could spell death for everyone around me." He glanced around at the other patrons, at the row of fragile glass bottles lined up behind the bar. "I could rip this place apart in a second. Nobody here would be able to stop me." His restless gaze finally halted on Bao-Dur. "Not even you."

The Zabrak met his eyes squarely. "You won't."

"Yeah, that's what you said before Malachor," Banner shot back. "_'You can control it, Bruce. You're stronger than that.'_ Didn't quite go to plan, did it? And before you say it was the stress of the battle, you want to know how many incidents I've had since then? _Five_. Sixteen people have died because I'm not strong enough to control... this." He gestured towards himself with a shaking hand. "I should have died," he whispered, his voice so soft Bao-Dur had to strain to hear it. "I wish I had. Whatever that explosion was, I wish it had killed me too."

Bao-Dur forced himself to keep looking at Bruce, no matter how much it hurt as he forced the words out. "Don't ever say that," he whispered in the merest shred of a voice. "I killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers with that blast, Bruce. I couldn't bear it if you had been one of them."


	4. Dying

"You?" Bruce Banner asked quietly.

Bao-Dur gave a shallow nod. "Me," he said in an empty voice. The word was like a curse in his mouth. "It was me, Bruce. I built the Mass Shadow Generator on Revan's orders and detonated it when the General gave the command. I destroyed hundreds of ships and killed thousands of men and women... _our_ men and women." He slowly let his gaze fall to the tabletop as he spoke, unable to look his friend in the face any longer. "I didn't lose control like you, either," he added. "It was my choice. I could have stopped it at any time, but I – I didn't. I killed those people. I did it. Me."

He could feel Banner's gaze on him, but he didn't dare meet it. He had never blamed Banner for his 'incidents' and he still did not, but it was one thing to succumb to the constant pressure of gamma radiation, and another to make the conscious decision to build a superweapon that would then kill ten of thousands of people. Self-loathing rose in his throat like bile. He wanted to walk out before Banner did so in disgust, but he couldn't bring himself to move.

The silence stretched until it became uncomfortable. Bao-Dur's remote, hovering in the air above his right shoulder, finally broke it with a gentle beeping. The sound startled both men from their respective reveries, and they each looked up from the table at the same time to meet each other's eyes.

"You won us the war," Bruce Banner said.

Bao-Dur shook his head slowly. It would take more than that to allow him to sleep easily at night, to suppress the memories of an uncountable number of lives coming to an abrupt close in the space of a few seconds. "I killed our own men, Bruce," he argued. "Would they thank me if they could? Or would they damn me with their sudden last breaths?"

"We were at war, Bao-Dur," Banner replied. "Everyone at Malachor V was willing to do what they had to do in order for us to win."

"Even die?" Bao-Dur demanded. "Even be killed by one of their own men?"

Banner shrugged. "They would have laid down their lives in battle against the Mandalorians. How is this any different?"

The Zabrak smiled bitterly. "You'd have to ask them."

Banner looked at Bao-Dur with an expression that would have been familiar to him if he could have seen it. It was the one that Bao-Dur had worn so often when the Zabrak was trying to convince Bruce that his 'incidents' weren't his fault and that nobody blamed him for them. Banner had never believed any of it, and now it seemed the roles had reversed.

"Do you want a drink?" Bao-Dur asked suddenly. "I could use a drink."

Bruce gave a thin smile and gestured to one of the waitresses. It was a measure of the seriousness of the situation that he ordered for both of them; he rarely drank, fearing to surrender even the slightest amount of control. Bao-Dur, on the other hand, was ready to drown the entirety of the day in a tankard of juma juice. First he'd heard of the destruction of his home colony; then a friend he'd presumed dead by his own hand had returned, and with him a whole host of unwelcome memories. Neither of the men spoke until the waitress returned with their drinks, and even then their glasses were half-empty before Banner broke the silence again.

"Bao-Dur," he said quietly, "we were losing that fight. You can say what you want, but without the Mass Shadow Generator, we _would_ have lost. None of the ground troops there that day wanted to see that happen, and you prevented it. Without you, we could never have won."

"Without me," Bao-Dur answered easily, "thousands of those troops would never have died."

"No," Bruce said emphatically. "Because they were dying, even before you pulled that trigger. The Mandalorians were overpowering most of our men on the surface and in the fleets. And the – the dark energy, or whatever it was that surrounds that planet... it was sapping our strength and our morale, even corrupting some of the Jedi. We could not have won without that weapon, Bao-Dur. It decimated the Mandalorians."

The Zabrak raised his eyes from his glass to look at Bruce. "As did you."

Instantly, Banner's wide eyes and earnest expression vanished, replaced with the guarded look he wore whenever the subject of the Other Guy was raised. "That was different," he said instantly. "That –"

"Was it?" Bao-Dur asked. "Or did you hulk out because you would have been overpowered otherwise, in order to save yourself and the men around you?"

"I _killed_ the men around me," Bruce hissed, his voice cracking with the effort of not shouting. "When I was done tearing apart the Mandalorians that menaced us, I turned on our own men. I had no control, Bao-Dur."

"Then you had no choice."

"Of course I had a choice. There's always a choice. I just wasn't strong enough or smart enough to overcome him. He – _we_ – killed dozens of our own. My allies. The people I had worked with, fought beside, for months and years."

"Then you know exactly how I feel."

Banner opened his mouth to shout, but couldn't find the words. Eventually he said quietly, "That's different. You did what you had to do."

"As did you," Bao-Dur said simply. "You were being overwhelmed by the enemy, so you defeated them in the only way possible. If you cannot blame me for killing ten thousand times more of our men than you did, then you cannot blame yourself."

The two men looked at each other for a long moment. They drained their glasses to fill in the silence with something to do. They thanked the waitress when she came and refilled them and then they drank again. This time even the remote was quiet. Long minutes passed in which Bruce and Bao-Dur did nothing more than drink and attempt to sort through years of self-hatred and guilt.

"Maybe you're right," Bruce Banner said at last.

Bao-Dur looked at him over the top of his glass. "Maybe I'm wrong," he said evenly. "But if I'm not, and you're right too, then we need to stop doing this, Bruce." He gestured towards their drinks and the bar in which they were. "Sitting in bars, drinking until we can't remember anything anymore... We've got to do something more with ourselves, something useful. We need to find a way to... to help somehow."

"To make up for what happened at Malachor V," Bruce said.

The Zabrak nodded. "Exactly."

Banner stared into his glass. "Somewhere quiet, please," he murmured. "It's been harder to... keep control, since Malachor. It was an evil place. I think it... made the Other Guy stronger somehow."

Bao-Dur finished up his drink and put it aside. "Well," he said, "I've only got one arm, so I guess we both have a way to go until we're fighting fit again."

There was a tiny smile on Bruce's face. "Guess that's one way of putting it." He hesitated customarily before looking up from his drink. "But we'll... we'll get through it, won't we?"

Bao-Dur extended the hand that hadn't been lost at Malachor V. "Yes," he said earnestly. "We will."


End file.
